dawntillmidnight. Travel . Photography . Write

I dipped my toes lightly into the water - it was freezing. The waves of the Pacific Ocean continued crashing into the shoreline, foaming over my feet and rolling back out in a game of peek-a-boo.

Baker Beach was one of the highlight of my trip to San Francisco. According to Google, it sports one of the best view of the Golden Gate Bridge, and being a camera geek that I am, how could I pass up on this golden opportunity to capture my own postcard-worthy photo?

Squinting my eyes towards the hint of red in the distance, I tried to make out whether the bridge was in fact, in existence. The fog was clearly not letting up. It would probably have been better if I had visited earlier in the afternoon, but my itinerary was packed to the brim as it was. I decided to march on forward towards the bridge in bid for a better view. It took me two long (and frankly, quite intimidating) bus rides to get there, and I was not about to leave without a single decent picture.

I had my eyes transfixed on the visible parts of the bridge as I forged on towards it. Suddenly, a motion in the water caught my eye. A man, dressed only in his birthday suit, was up to his knees in the icy water. My breath caught for a moment. Was he on a suicide mission? The cold of the water, coupled with the cool breeze, could transform anyone into ice in a jiffy even if he were fully clothed, so why was he nude?

A ring of laughter from the shore captured my attention then and I whipped my focus towards it. A group of middle-aged people were happily playing volleyball - in nude, no doubt. I immediately relaxed. So, the man was just another nudist. He was not planning on drowning himself. I laughed at my own silliness.

A man caught my eye and gestured me over. He nodded his head at the camera slung around my neck and requested my help to shoot a nude portrait of himself. Argh, I hate my huge camera sometimes. I meekly obliged, and as quickly as I could, snapped a picture on his camera and thrusted it back to him. Here I was, fully-clothed in jeans and an oversized jacket, and yet feeling wholly uncomfortable and out of place on this part of the beach. While my initial plan was to hike the 1.4 kilometres up to the Golden Gate Bridge from the northern part of Baker Beach, another encounter with a nudist requesting for a photograph scared the living daylights out of me.

I decided to give up and headed back to the city, where I relished in the safety of bright lights and fully-clothed human-beings.